Where the sun shines

It was a good day for it; sunny and bright, not a cloud in the sky; perfect lighting for peering under docks to see what's living there now. Unfortunately, when I got to Brown's Bay, there was a brisk wind and the water was dancing and painting abstract patterns. And maintenance had scraped whole communities off the floats. (Necessary, and some critters can relocate, but I wish ...) There were still a few sheltered spots; I found them.

Giant plumose anemones on a pipe with an unusual pink tinge.

On the wooden base of a float; plumose anemone, green sea urchins and a jelly swimming by.

Most feather duster tube worms look purmplish in their shadowy underwater homes. This one caught an unusually bright ray of light. The yellow is probably a sponge.

Group of feather duster worms, Eudistylia vancouveri.One shows up red.

A winged kelp with a pronounced stipe, Alaria marginata. In the upper part of the photo, they're attached to the dock base; underneath, they float free. They grow up to 3 metres long.

Harbour seal, Phoca vitulina. There were three of them this day, just hanging around waiting for fisher folk to come back with their catch.

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Era un dia ideal para sacar fotos de criaturas debajo de los muelles; asoleado, brillante, el cielo azul, sin  nubes; se necesita buena luz para ver claro esas comunidades acuáticas. Lástima fue que cuando llegué a Brown's Bay, se había levantado una brisa fuerte, haciendo bailar las olas, pintando diseños abstractos. Además, los encargados del mantenimiento del sitio habían limpiado los flotadores. Algo necesario en una marina, y muchos de los organismos se pueden encontrar albergue en las rocas, pero una lástima de todas maneras.

Pero buscando, buscando, encontré unos pocos sitios protegidos.

1. Anémonas Metridium senile, en un tubo. El tinte color de rosa no lo he visto antes.
2. En la madera debajo de un muelle, vi otra anémona blanca y un par de erizos verdes de mar. Una pequeña medusa pasaba, nadando lentamente.
3. Los gusanos tubícolas normalmente parecen ser oscuros, en tonos de color púrpura, sobre todo en las oscuridades donde viven. Un rayo fuerte de luz solar iluminó este, mostrando su fuerte color rojo. Lo amarillo probablemente sea una esponja.
4. Un grupo de estos gusanos, Eudistylia vancouveri.
5. Algas marinas, quelpos de doble alas, Alaria marginata. En la parte superior de la foto, están adheridas a la base del muelle; abajo, flotan libremente. Estas algas llegan a unos 3 metros desde su base.
6. Una foca, Phoca vitulina. Había tres este dia, dando vueltas perezosamente, esperando que regresaran los pescadores con las cabezas y entrañas que desecharán al limpiar su pesca del dia en el sitio proveído en el muelle para esta tarea.

Sunny interlude

The sun came out over Tyee Spit. I stood at the northern tip for a good while, watching seals playing in the tidal current, surfacing to roll back into the water, sometimes silently, sometimes leaping far enough out of the water to come down with a splash, once a short stone's throw from the shore where I stood. Only once did I catch a splash on camera, and this was it; halfway across the channel.

South end of Discovery Passage, looking northeast. The splashing seal is behind the kayak.

A Skywatch post.

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Salió el sol. En la lengua de tierra, Tyee Spit, en el extremo al norte donde el rio entra al agua salada, me quedé un largo rato, observando las focas que jugaban en la corriente, fuerte en esos momentos con el cambio de dirección de la marea. Las focas subían a la superficie y se volvían a sumergir; a veces daban saltos al aire, cayendo con un buen chasquido acompañado de un gran salpicón de agua. Una foca saltó a escasos metros de donde yo estaba parada en la orilla del agua. Una sola vez logré capturar uno de estos saltos grandes con la cámara; y eso, bien lejos, en el centro del estrecho.

Foto: El pasaje "Discovery", mirando hacia el noreste. El salpicón que dejó la foca está atrás del kayak.

Lazy afternoon

 At the Brown's Bay marina, someone was gutting fish, and the harbour seals were hanging around, waiting for their share of the goodies.

Lazy afternoon. Why go fishing, when you've got humans to do it for you?

Harbour seals have no ear flaps, and the ear canal is visible behind the eye.

She is smaller than the first one, and fatter. I assume she's female; the males are larger.

This seal was resting for a while on the sea floor after the fisherfolk had finished and left; she seemed to be sleeping, but came up to look at us, then sunk to the bottom again. A harbour seal can stay underwater for up to 40 minutes.

Slightly less lazy than the seals, a number of jellies floated with the current, pulsating gently as they went, catching plankton in their stinging tentacles. 

Water jelly, aka many-ribbed medusa, Aequorea sp.

Moon jelly, Aurelia labiata. Notice the scalloped edge, and the many short tentacles.

A school of tiny fish was more active, circling and circling, sometimes breaking the surface of the water, leaving little circles of wavelets.

Herrings. Juveniles this size are known as fingerlings.

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En el muelle de Brown's Bay, unos pescadores estaban limpiando su captura del dia, y un grupo de focas moteadas daban vueltas, esperando su parte de la bonanza.

1. Una tarde tranquila. ¿Porqué ir a cazar cuando cuentas con humanos que comparten su pesca?
2. Las focas moteadas no tienen orejas, y se ven los canales auriculares grandes.
3. Esta foca es más chica que la primera, y creo que es hembra; los machos son más grandes. Descansaba en el fondo del agua después de que los pescadores habían terminado su tarea y se habían ido. Parecía que estaba durmiendo, pero subió a mirarnos por un momento; luego se volvió a sumergir. Las focas moteadas pueden quedar sumergidas por hasta 40 minutos.
4. No tan flojas como las focas; unas medusas flotaban en la corriente, palpitando levemente, atrapando plancton con sus tentáculos. Esta es una de las "medusas de agua", Aequorea spp.
5. Una medusa "luna", Aurelia labiata. Se notan su borde ondulado y sus múltiples tentáculos finos.
6. Más activos: un banco de pececitos dando vueltas. A veces rompen la superficie del agua, haciendo círculos de onditas. Estos son arenques juveniles, alevines.

Swimmer in a spotted coat

The sun was bright, the water smooth and clear. I was leaning over the rails of a ramp, counting starfish below the docks, when this big seal surfaced and took a look around.

So big! Harbour seal, Phoca vitulina

She — I think she's a she because she looks pregnant. But maybe she's just well fed. — she was big! Coming out almost underneath my feet, she looked longer (and fatter) than me. Over 160 cm, anyhow.

I had never noticed the long toes and their claws before.

She looked around for a minute, then rolled down and swam under the dock, into the dark green water. I waited, and she curved around, came back and came up for air again. Twice, three times. So graceful her movements, so smooth!

 

Third time up. After the first glance about, she kept her eyes shut. Possibly the sunlight was too much, unshielded by the water.

Side view, with a glimpse of the ear hole.

The perfect end to a great day.

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Hacía sol, y el agua estaba tranquila y clara. Yo estaba apoyada en la baranda de la rampa que da al muelle, contando estrellas de mar en el fondo del agua, cuando esta foca grande salió de debajo de la rampa, y subió a la superfice a echar un vistazo.

Foto # 1: La foca, una foca moteada, o de puerto, Phoca vitulina. Muy grande.

Ella — se me hace que es hembra porque tiene el aspecto de estar embarazada. O tal vez, nada más ha estado comiendo muy bien — era, creo, más larga que yo, y más gorda, midiendo más de los 160 cm. aproximadamente, por lo menos.

Nunca antes había notado esos dedos largos y esas uñas en las aletas.

Miró alrededor por un momento, y luego dobló, se hundió, y desapareció entre el agua verde debajo del muelle. Yo esperaba, y al rato, regresó y subió a respirar otra vez. Y otra, y otra.

¡Tan elegante sus movimientos, tan suaves!

Foto # 2: La tercera subida. Después de la primera mirada, mantuvo los ojos cerrados. Tal vez el sol, sin la cortina del agua, era demasiado brillante.

Foto # 3: Se le ve el canal auricular detrás del ojo.

El final perfecto a un dia fabuloso.

Red head, green head, round heads

Brown's Bay is quiet at this time of year; the restaurant is closed, the docks deserted. I had gone to look for birds along the road, without luck this time. But in the quiet bay, a pair of mergansers and three seals swam and paddled about undisturbed.

Common mergansers, Mergus merganser.

The breeding male has the iridescent green head; the female's head is rusty red and she wears a crest. They are happy both on salt and fresh water; when I first saw this pair, they were in the creek; by the time I'd found a good vantage point on the shore, they were out near the seals.

He was such a blinding white!

The seals — I think there were three; there could have been more, but I saw three heads up at the same time — kept bobbing up and down, coming over to look at me, but never getting too close.

Harbour seal, Phoca vitulina

Getting a good look at me.

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La bahía "Brown's Bay" espera en silencio en esta temporada; el restaurante no abre hasta junio, no hay nadie en los muelles ni en la tienda. Yo había ido a buscar pájaros al lado del camino, sin suerte esta vuelta. Pero en la bahía desierta, una pareja de serretas grandes, Mergus merganser, y tres focas daban vueltas sin que nadie los estrobara.

Fotos: Los serretas: el macho en época de reproducción tiene la cabeza de un color verde fuerte, iridiscente. La hembra, y los juveniles tienen la cabeza de un rojo de ladrillo, con una cresta.

Estos patos se encuentran en agua salada o fresca. Cuando vi esta pareja por primera vez, estaban en el riachuelo; para cuando logré establecerme en el muelle, estaban en la bahía cerca de las focas.

Las focas: son focas comunes, o sea focas de puerto. Había por lo menos tres — pudo haber más, pero por lo menos vi tres cabezas asomándose a la vez.  Se hundían y volvían a salir, acercándose para verme, pero con cuidado.

A couple of critters

Moving on from the rocks ...

In the woods, I found a green slug.

Pacific Banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus. The cones are hemlock.

Most of the slugs I see are either the black slugs, Chocolate Arion, or these Banana slugs. The Bananas are extremely variable; they can be yellow or black or green or coffee or coffee cream, mottled or patchy. They all have the central keel down the back.

I looked up the slugs on E-Fauna, just to refresh my memory: there are 26 species listed in BC; here on the island they are mostly Bananas or Chocolates. But I didn't know this: there are several species of Jumping slugs. Two of them can be found in the forests of Vancouver Island. I'll be looking for them now, And wondering about that jumping.

This next critter is easy to identify:

Harbour seal, trapped on land. On the platform above the rocks.

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Regresando de las rocas ...

En el bosque encontré una babosa verde. Es una de las babosas plátano, (Ariolimax columbianus). Estas babosas son muy variables. Pueden ser amarillas, negras, cafés, color crema, verdes como esta, con parches de amarillo y negro, con puntitos o rayas de varios colores. Algunas son muy grandes.

La otra babosa que veo seguido por aquí es la babosa chocolate, que es de un negro absoluto. Pero miré la lista que tiene E-Fauna; ahí hay 26 especies de babosa en la provincia. Esto no lo sabía; hay varias babosas que se llaman saltarinas. Dos se pueden encontrar en los bosques de la isla. Voy a mantener los ojos abiertos; ojalá encuentre una. Pero no me imagino como una babosa puede saltar.

También había otro animal, este en la plataforma arriba de las rocas. Una foca común, hecha en madera, así que no le importa estar fuera del agua.

Friendly harbour seal

It's been two weeks since I posted here; an unplanned break, partly due to health issues (nothing to worry about; an old injury flaring up and ruining my days, keeping me awake nights. It will pass.) And just plain discouragement. Sometimes it feels wrong to celebrate the beauty and immense variety of the world around us while it I watch it go down in fear and flames. As if I hadn't noticed. But I have, and I'm grieving.

But. Quitting never accomplished anything. And all may not be lost. Maybe.

Today a towhee came and pearched in the pear tree for a while, and a hummingbird hovered around the feeder. And I moved furniture and discovered three (3!) spiders and a sowbug, after weeks of never seeing any little beasties. I went down to the shore, and the cormorants were parked on their rock in the watery sunlight; the trees were stark against a pearly sky, and the water shimmered. Life goes on, and it is good.

So I'm back, in time for Christmas.

I went to get fresh sea water for my tank, at the closest boat launch. It is two long docks enclosed in a breakwater of huge rocks. In the circle, the water was calm, although just outside, the changing tide was making waves. As I carried my buckets down to the end of the dock, a harbour seal popped his head up to look at me. I froze, and he went down, came up a bit closer, ducked under again, and came right up to within a couple of metres away to get a good look at me.

At a distance.

I could almost touch him.

But something was wrong. His right eye was closed. Mostly, when he came up to look at me again, he turned the left side towards me. He kept ducking down, coming up again, on one side of the dock, then the other, always watching me.

With half his head underwater, he has a very doggy look about him, like the lab next door.

A family came in in their boat, and the seal went down. I collected my water and loaded it into the car. When I looked back, the family was still getting their stuff out of the boat, but the seal was back, watching them.

I mentioned this to one of the men. He said, "He's hoping you have food for him." I gathered from this that the seal is a regular. And fisherfolk come in here, gut and behead their fish, and dump the heads into the water. A good reason to hang around if your eyesight isn't all that great for underwater hunting.

I went down to the dock again. The seal came back to look me over.

Here, he gives me a look at his damaged eye. And his front flippers, constantly in motion.

Underwater, beside the dock.

It looks like the eye opens slightly underwater. Not all the way, but the white and a bit of the iris show up. The other one looks brown underwater; above, it looks black.

View as he goes under the dock under my feet. Hind flippers and coat pattern.

Another loop, speeding this time. Nice whiskers!

I watched for a while, then said goodbye. As I got into my car, up on the approach, I looked back. He was sitting up in the water close to the shore, with his neck stretched tall, watching me.

I wished I were a fisher, so I could bring him a fish.

View of the outer dock and the breakwater, while the seal waited for the fisherpeople to drag their boat out of the water. You can see him there; two lumps. He's just resting, waiting.

A quibble

I must go down to the sea again,
To the lonely seas and the sky,
And all I ask is ...
(Apologies to John Masefield)

A dose of reality: that loneliness is deceptive. The sea has no space for loneliness. Under that apparently calm surface are teeming multitudes of busy lives.

And the sky; from here, we don't see the mobs of mosquitoes, flies, butterflies, ballooning spiders, and the like. The swallows see them though, and dart through the clouds collecting supper for the little ones.

I had gone down to the boat ramp to get new water for my aquarium. The day was cool and grey, welcome after a taste of summer; as I left, it was starting to rain. The tide was turning and everything, air and water and rocks, seemed momentarily in stasis.

One "lonely" crow.

But there were crabs and jellyfish in the water at the foot of the ramp, snails and barnacles on the rocks. And that crow is watching a quarrel, a horde, a squabbling, shrieking, greedy melee of gulls, fighting over the cat food I had just left at water's edge. (The cats had rejected it. I think they read the labels and refuse to taste anything other than the most expensive brands. But it was full of fish and chicken innards and ground corn and fish oils; ideal gull food. They had left all their perches on the rocks around to come to the party.)

A few seconds later, the crow joins the fun.

Fishing harbour seal, leaving the school to come and see what was going on on shore.

Every so often, out in the channel another black head would pop up. Harbour seals, following a school of fish. I counted four heads up at the same time: no telling how many were down there feasting.

One of the gulls on the boat ramp, taking a breather. The food's almost all gone, anyhow.

... And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

Can't argue with him there!

With the jawbone of a seal

I promised you a rotting carcass.

I have a photo, but I think I'll keep it under wraps. It's not pretty. (And if you're squeamish, you may want to skip the next paragraph.)

The body, twisted and torn, was lying on the rocks just out of reach of the latest high tide, almost dry. The skin on the legs and back was mostly intact, still slightly hairy. The feet, badly deformed, looked as if they had been flippers. There was no head; the vertebrae, stained black, stretched out of a gaping neck hole.

I found the skull a few steps farther down the beach, and the jaw just beyond that. They were cleaned and dry.

Skull, as found. The whole nose area and upper jaw are missing.

Turned over. The remaining portion of the skull is a bit bigger than my clenched fist.

And the lower jaw. Interesting four-pronged teeth. The back tooth is gone.

Teeth, flippers, hair, skull sutures, size: they made identification easy. It was a harbour seal. It must have died in the water, swollen and floated, and was washed ashore with the highest tide. I wonder how it was that the head and jaw were so thoroughly picked clean, while most of the body was left to rot.

The ocean is full of mysteries.

Harbour seal

Three harbour seals were fishing in the Campbell River estuary. This one came close enough to show off the spots on his head.

Up for air.

Rainy evening

I had been intending to go down to the docks to look for the diving ducks that fish these waters, but was delayed running errands, and here it was, past 5. And the sun sets at 4:30 these days; it was getting dark, and pouring rain to boot.

But the camera was waiting in the car, and my jacket was already wet; why waste an outing? I got the camera into its rain gear, and went down to the boats.

At the bottom of the ramp, a dead harbour seal was floating, half out of the water.

A sad picture, but the spotted hide is interesting.

The head seems to be intact, but skin was sloughing off the back feet already. The creamy line across the centre back seems to be a cut. He may have been in an accident with one of the boats.

Maybe someone ignored this sign. Photo taken with flash, which reflected off the falling rain to make that paler circle of blue. The house is one of the harbour buildings, out on a pier.

Warm light reflecting off ridges on the ramp, and, directly under the light, off raindrops slanting down.

Just lights, warm and cool, on the water.

There was one bird; a great blue heron, looking miserable in the rain. I lightened the photo up quite a bit; he was barely visible.

I went back to the car, got the camera out of its rain gear, changed the settings to cope with the fading light, suited it up again, and went out, to discover the heron just flying away, a dark, wide-winged shadow flitting behind the masts of the boats.

And here are the boats, with all the little lights and someone's bright yellow rain gear.

The darkness and rain blurs out distances, so that the masts and equipment blend in with the traffic lights beyond, the fish and chip shop across the street, and even the houses in the next block above.  In spite of the dark and the wet, it felt cosy, somehow; as if the people in all those little pockets of warmth and light were connected by a common thread; the hour maybe, the time to finish off today's work, and get a hot meal on the table.

And I went home, dried off the camera, hung my jacket to drip over the tub, and cooked up a batch of chicken and mushroom soup.

Haulout

Always carry a spare. My camera took one look at the big sea lions hauled out on the rocks at Mitlenatch Island, and called it a day. But the little Sony was in my pocket, ready to take on the challenge.

Steller's sea lions. And a pair of California sea lions on the far left, bawling.

Two groups of Steller's sea lions

As we passed the first seals, far ahead we could see a group of sea lions sleeping on a rock just offshore. The rock was mostly underwater. And the tide was coming in fast. By the time we'd come parallel with the group, the lions were mostly underwater, too. But they just lay there, still sleeping, as the water rose over them. Only flippers and a few noses were visible, moving lazily if at all.

California sea lions on the last rock.

Three species of pinnipeds, (from Latin pinna "fin" and pes, pedis "foot") (Wikipedia), generally known as seals, were milling about or sleeping on the rocks and in the water below Mitlenatch.

The harbour seals are "true" seals, meaning they have no external ears, and small flippers. They grow to about 150 kilos. A group of these were sunning themselves near Camp Bay.

Sea lions are larger and have external ear flaps. Their flippers are large enough to support their weight on land, and the rear flippers rotate forward to serve as legs. The "true" seals' hind flippers are good in water, but useless on land.

Steller's sea lions are the largest of the eared seals, with males growing up to 10 feet long and weighing up to 1120 kilos, more than my car. (A Yaris)

The California sea lion is smaller, reaching to 8 feet long, and up to 350 kilos. The males have a protruding crest on their forehead, visible even at a distance.

California sea lion, male. Note the size of the flippers, and the rotation of the hind ones.

Males are much bigger than the females, up to 3 times their size.

Comparative sizes, male, female, and pup. Steller's sea lion. Wikipedia photo, by Eliezg

California sea lions bark and growl and roar; Steller's roar, grunt and groan. Their combined voices, heard over water, are an experience not to be forgotten. I took a too-short video from the bouncing dinghy, with a few seconds of the Steller's chorus.

Voices start at 0:28.

(9th in a series of 9 Mitlenatch Island posts. #1, #2, #3, #4. #5. #6, #7, #8.)

Orange squiggles

The last warm rays of afternoon sun at the marina:

Reflections, with harbour seal, on his way down.

This seal was dawdling in the gaps between docks, drifting along, looking about, then slowly sinking. I saw him or his friends several times, always idling along. At the last, the sun had disappeared, and my teeth were chattering. I shivered back to the car and turned the heater on high.

Squiggles and boats, but the seal is gone.